The Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en to open 2016 Toron­to Film Festival

The team at the Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val have released their first tranche of titles, and there’s some great stuff already in the mix. The big news is that The Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en is set to open the fes­ti­val. Antoine Fuqua’s remake of the clas­sic 1960 west­ern, itself a retool­ing of Aki­ra Kurosawa’s Sev­en Samu­rai, stars Den­zel Wash­ing­ton as a boun­ty hunter hired to pro­tect a desert town from a ruth­less indus­tri­al­ist. It marks the third time Fuqua and Wash­ing­ton will part­ner fol­low­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions on Train­ing Day and The Equalizer.

Else­where, Dami­an Chazelle’s high­ly antic­i­pat­ed La La Land is not the only musi­cal to make it to the fest. Sing, an ani­mat­ed fea­ture about a mot­ley group of ani­mals who enter a singing con­test held by an indus­tri­ous koala, will also screen. This is the first film from Garth Jen­nings since the bril­liant Son of Ram­bow, though he is per­haps best known for his take Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The oth­er musi­cal­ly-inclined film of note is the Jonathan Demme helmed JT and the Ten­nessee Kids. Lit­tle has been revealed about the project but it is most like­ly a film ver­sion of Justin Timberlake’s lat­est tour. There’s also a doc called The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé which fol­lows the band way down Mex­i­co way.

It will be intrigu­ing to catch Ewan McGregor’s direc­to­r­i­al debut, Amer­i­can Pas­toral, the sto­ry of a fam­i­ly torn apart by their daughter’s rad­i­cal polit­i­cal actions and adapt­ed from Philip Roth’s cel­e­brat­ed nov­el of the same name. Oliv­er Stone, no stranger to the polit­i­cal thriller, returns with Snow­den, and has draft­ed in Joseph Gor­don Levitt play­ing the title whis­tle-blow­ing title char­ac­ter. And at the heart of Herzog’s lat­est, the envi­ron­men­tal thriller Salt and Fire, is a sim­mer­ing super-vol­cano. When it threat­ens to erupt, a sci­en­tist (Veron­i­ca Fer­res) and a cor­po­rate CEO (Michael Shan­non) must team up to survive.

It was also announced that Tom Ford’s sec­ond fea­ture film would screen at the fes­ti­val. It’s been some six years after the suc­cess of A Sin­gle Man, and the fash­ion design­er-turned-direc­tor returns with Noc­tur­nal Ani­mals, the sto­ry of a woman who becomes obsessed with a man­u­script sent to her by her ex-hus­band. François Ozon also makes an appear­ance with his mono­chrome, Ger­man-lan­guage romance, Frantz. There are far too many cin­e­mat­ic treats to talk about here, so here is the full list so far.

The Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en by Antoine Fuqua

The Age of Shad­ows by Kim Jee-woon
Amer­i­can Hon­ey by Andrea Arnold
Amer­i­can Pas­toral by Ewan McGre­gor
The City of Mad­ness by Kim Sung-soo
Bar­ry by Vikram Gand­hi
The Birth of a Nation by Nate Park­er
Bleed For This by Ben Younger
Blue Jay by Alex Lehmann
Brim­stone by Mar­tin Kool­hoven
Broth­er­hood by Noël Clarke
Cat­fight by Onur Tukel
City of Tiny Lights by Pete Travis
Denial by Mick Jack­son
Elle by Paul Ver­ho­even
For­eign Body by Raja Amari
Frantz by François Ozon
Park Chhan Wook Hind­maid­en
Har­mo­ni­um by Kôji Fuka­da
I Am Not Madame Bovary Feng Xiao­gang
King of the Dance­hall by Nick Can­non
La La Land by Damien Chazelle
The Lime­house Golem by Juan Car­los Med­i­na
Man­ches­ter By-the-Sea by Ken­neth Lon­er­gan
Mas­cots by Christo­pher Guest
Maudie by Ais­ling Walsh
Neru­da by Pablo Lar­rain
Noc­tur­nal Ani­mals by Tom Ford
The Oath by Balt­haz­ar Kor­makur
Orphen­line by Arnaud des Pal­lières
Paris Can Wait by Eleanor Cop­po­la
Pater­son by Jim Jar­musch
The Sales­man by Ash­gar Farhar­di
Salt and Fire by Wern­er Her­zog
Sing by Garth Jen­nings
Sou­venir by Bavo Defurne
Things To Come by Mia Hansen-Løve
Toni Erd­mann by Maren Ade
Tres­pass Against Us by Adam Smith
Una by Bene­dict Andrews
Unless by Alan Gilse­nan
The Wast­ed Times by Er Cheng

Arrival by Denis Vil­leneuve
Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon by Peter Berg
The Headhunter’s Call­ing by Mark Williams
The Jour­ney is the Des­ti­na­tion by Bron­wen Hugh­es
JC and the Ten­nessee Kids by Jonathan Demme
LBJ by Rob Rein­er
Lion by Garth Jason
Lov­ing by Jeff Nichols
A Mon­ster Calls by AJ Bay­ona
Plan­e­tar­i­um by Rebec­ca Zlo­tows­ki
Queen of Katwe by Mira Nair
The Secret Scrip­ture by Jim Sheri­dan
Snow­den by Oliv­er Stone
Strange Weath­er by Kather­ine Dieck­mann
Their Finest by Lone Scher­fig
A Unit­ed King­dom by Amma Asante

The Edge of Sev­en­teen by Kel­ly Fre­mon Craig

The 2016 Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val runs from 8 to 18 September